


Wings

by Peachykeenaspie



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Almost animal death, Animal Death, Animal Traits, Bullying, Crying, Flashbacks, Gen, I love him, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Just an owl, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Patton is an owl, Pulling out feathers, Roman is referenced, Scars, Semi-graphic violence, Wing Binding, Winged!Virgil, Wingfic, hunger, phantom pains
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:13:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,600
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26702752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Peachykeenaspie/pseuds/Peachykeenaspie
Summary: This will probably be a multi-chapter fic at some point but I haven't written the rest yet, and this can easily stand as a one-shot. I hope you enjoyed!(Also, did anyone catch the tiny allusion to Roman? He'll show up later, but he's the vigilante.)
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Morality | Patton Sanders
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	Wings

A rat scurried across the attic floor of the old mansion on 34th Street. It poked its inquisitive snout out of a hole in the baseboard, whiskers twitching and feeling the air like they had tiny lives of their own. It looked from side to side, its beady eyes gleaming as the moonlight caught on them through the cracks of a boarded-up window. All was still. No sound, not even the house settling on itself, or the crickets that lived in the walls, could be heard as the rat took one tentative step, then another, and then it was out of its hole, whiskers still twitching incessantly, and bolting for the other end of the attic and the safety of the hole opposite.

Its whiskers twitched again, picking up a movement in the air, and it stopped halfway through the space, sitting on its furry haunches and sniffing anxiously. Something was not right.

Unfortunately for the rat, that something was also starving. And the rat was nowhere close to being the protagonist in this story.

Noiselessly, a dark shape swooped down and grabbed the rat in razor-sharp talons, digging its beak into the rat’s neck and killing it instantly.

The rat felt no pain—it was all over in less than a blink. It had never had much of an existence anyway.

And it was only a rat, and hardly important, except as a meal, perhaps.

The white-faced owl which had ended its meager life so swiftly chuckled happily and bobbed its head, turning its soulful black eyes towards the one unboarded window. It let out a quiet screech in greeting as a much larger shadow flew in through the window and landed gracefully on the square of moonlight almost as softly as the owl had.

The moonlight illuminated its features and made it seem almost like a winged ghost; sharp cheekbones, ghostly pale skin, huge eyes made even bigger by the sunken, hunger-panged cheeks. It was a young man; a very skinny one. His bones jutted out at awkward angles, making him look almost skeletal. A black tunic hung off his delicate frame, and his arms were covered in a black patched jacket that was hardly protection from the chill. He looked as though a strong breeze might blow him over, and he carried himself as though he expected the breeze to come any second.

He exuded a quiet, restless, latent strength, like he was waiting for something unknown but was prepared for when it came. If a passer-by had seen his face on the street, their eyes would have passed over him; not because he looked unremarkable (he looked quite striking, in fact, especially in the moonlight), but because they would not want to remember. His deep brown eyes held sorrow and a hardness beyond his young years that any respectable person would be loath to recall. His movements were small and jerky, like the owl itself.

Perhaps that could be explained by his particularly remarkable features, the ones where, if he had been on the street, people would have forgone ignoring and their own discomfort and stared instead: two massive wings, black as night but with the barest hint of purple iridescence in the moonlight, wrapped around him like an extra blanket. The wings were not beautiful. They were powerful, certainly, but in their folded position were crumpled and bent, pressed too close to the youth’s back, almost stunted. The plumage was broken in many places by pale scars. Remarkable, yes, but attractive? Certainly not.

The youth shivered, his feathers rustling, but he smiled softly as the owl flew up to drop the rat in his open palm. The owl landed on his shoulder, nuzzling into the man’s other hand.

“Thanks, Patton,” the young man said to the owl, his voice quiet but rough, an unexpected sound coming from one so fragile-looking.

Patton crooned.

The man pulled a small knife out of a pocket, small but sharp, and cut through the rat, holding half out to Patton.

He bit into his own half, lamenting the dull ache in his stomach that, along with the owl and his memories, was a constant companion. He sighed, shoulders slumping, sitting cross-legged with his wings tucked loosely at his back. Rats were disgusting; the fur tickled and scratched going down, and there were too many little bones to count. The youth was able to digest most of it, but he was not looking forward to the unpleasant feeling of throwing the pellet of fur and bones up later.

There wasn’t much choice, however, and he had accepted the fact resignedly. The owners of the house on 34th street had been away for a month now, and wouldn’t be back for the same length of time; not until the worst of winter was past. That meant there was no food in the house that he could steal.

He could don the thin black overcoat stashed in the corner, he pondered, and uncover the old fabric strips that he used to use for his wings, and try to sneak into a grocery store. Patton could help him steal from a food truck, or something.

_God I miss meat pies_.

That wouldn’t work, either, not as anything other than a last resort. It would mean he had to bind his wings, and the appendages spasmed with pain at the mere thought. And he would have to face a crowd, in front of whom countless things could go awry. And besides, he probably wouldn’t get away with stealing anything even if he could work up the courage to go in public, not with that new high-tech vigilante around.

The youth shuddered, and finished his rat. He was still hungry.

It wasn’t always like this, but it had been for two years now.

* * *

_It was hot, and children chased each other around the courtyard, laughing and tackling each other to the ground in fits of joyful screams. The air hummed with cicadas; they had come out early this year. A few adult supervisors stood by the steps, chatting idly and fanning themselves. Despite the dark and looming bulk of the orphanage building, a general feeling of pleasant serenity, of cheerful and lazy security, lay upon the figures in the courtyard._

_It was an idyllic scene; if there had been a camera, it might be on the front page of the orphanage website._

_Outside of the range of the camera lens, half-hidden under the shade of a gnarled oak far off in the corner of the walled-in yard, and even farther distanced from the other children, a lone boy sat and watched the others play. He traced circles in the dirt, feeling the rough grains beneath the pads of his fingers. That was Virgil. Virgil sighed, and shifted, feeling the ever-present pressure of the cloth strips that wound over his wings, keeping them shut to an uncomfortable degree and trapping them to his back. His wings cramped, and the ache spread from the base of his wings and throughout his body, making it hard to breathe. It was always a little hard to breathe._

_No one noticed Virgil in the darkness under the oak tree, and if they had, they didn’t bother showing it. Virgil knew the reason; it always sat unpleasantly in the pit of his stomach, almost like an old friend (his only friend). His wings were unnatural, as his teachers and the director had explained time and time again, and they made the other children uncomfortable. Scared even. They needed to be suppressed. Hidden._

_“You wouldn’t want to scare your friends, now would you, Virgil?” Mrs. Vinkle, the director, would say in her apologetic, saccharine tones._

_Virgil didn’t mind staying apart. He knew what the other children thought about him._

_“Monster.”_

_“Freak.”_

_“Animal,” they called him once. One particularly aggressive boy had locked him in the shed for a night, like a dog._

_It was okay; Virgil didn’t like himself much either._

* * *

Virgil blinked and realized he was shaking. He heard a rustle and felt a weight on his knee, and there was Patton, looking at him reassuringly with those deep black eyes. Virgil had a friend now, he had for a while. Patton made it okay. Virgil allowed himself one more shiver before he sighed, uncurled himself from the ball he hadn’t noticed he was in, finished his rat, and curled up in the soft nest of fabric and molted down that he had made in the corner. He drifted into exhausted, shallow sleep, Patton nestling himself next to him.

* * *

_“N-no, no,_ s-stop _,” Virgil whimpered, tears streaming down his face. His wings were in pain, so much pain, that he almost wished they were still bound to his back. He struggled, kicking out at the people looming around him, holding down his arms, his legs, crushing his face into the floor as Roger ripped away his feathers indiscriminately. It was agony, each plucked feather sending rivers of fire lancing through his wings and shooting down his spine and it hurt, it hurt_ so much _and his vision was spotty, and he cried out, and kept struggling, and a hand came up to cover his mouth, so he bit it, hard, tasting copper in his mouth and he_ hissed _as he almost blacked out as two feathers were pulled out at once and he kicked out and_ finally _he hit something, and caused one of the kids to let go of his leg. He kicked the hand on his other leg, too, and kicked out again, and something crunched, and he wrenched his hands away, and he was up, and he couldn’t breathe, and he was running away, and he couldn’t see through the darkness, and he was crying, and he was in so much pain pain_ pain _and his wings throbbed and stung with every step and every jostle and they felt bare, they felt naked, and they hurt_ so much _and Virgil didn’t stop until he was at the oak tree, and his fingers latched onto a knot and he pulled himself up and he kept climbing, because he had to get_ away _, even though he couldn’t hear anyone coming after him; he couldn’t hear anything except for his breathing and the sound of his sobs. He perched in the cross between two high-up branches, and curled up with his wings wrapped around him and away from his back so that they wouldn’t touch the tree and hurt more and because he had to_ hide _himself, and what if they found out he was hiding in the tree? Then they would drag him back down, kicking and screaming and hissing and pleading, and they would take the_ rest _of his feathers and then there would be more pain_ _and he_ sobbed _…_

* * *

Virgil’s wings were burning. He sat up with a gasp, sweat and tears dripping down his face. He couldn’t remember what the nightmare had been about this time, but he sat upright for a good long while, digging his nails into his wrists and trying to anchor himself. The moon poured in through the window, making the scars on his wings shine pale white, remnants of that night when the other kids had... Virgil shivered, his wings pulsing with old pain, and he tucked them more tightly around himself and Patton and tried not to cry. When finally the pain had faded, he lay back down and tried to go back to sleep.

It didn’t work.

The pain was gone, but he was still trembling.

* * *

_Virgil’s feathers grew back slowly. Painfully. They pricked up through his skin, and he had to try not to move because if he did then the fragile pinfeathers would break and then there would be blood everywhere. There were gouges on the back of his wings, too, where Roger had dug in his fingers. They scarred over, forever marring the ebony visage of the feathers. Virgil flinched whenever another person came near him. He grew even more anxious, even more jumpy. He didn’t go anywhere before looking around for danger. He started at the smallest noise. Even though nothing like that night happened again, his eyes grew wide and haunted, never stopping darting around the room unless he was alone. He resolved that he would never let anyone get the better of him again. He was given an old, too-large hoodie to wear over his wings one day, and he patched it up using some purple fabric from the dumpster. It was his security. He kept the hood up, and his bangs over his eyes, and tried even harder not to be noticed. It didn’t_ always _work, but at least it did work. Years later, when he had escaped the orphanage, he would cut slits into the back of the hoodie so his wings would fit through. But for now, he just stayed out of sight. Out of sight, out of mind._

_The other kids, as well as the adults, ignored him for the most part._

_Then the storm came._

_“Hello there, small friend,” Virgil cooed shyly, crouching down to scoop the downy chick out of the nest. The howling storm from the night before had done quite a bit of damage, but the most tragic had been the hatchling’s nest falling out of the old oak tree. The chick’s parents had abandoned the nest, as well as the two crushed eggs and the tiny chick, to its earthbound fate. Virgil had come out after the storm to his usual spot under the tree and gasped when he saw the vulnerable owlet, barely hatched, lying half-dead and drenched halfway out of the nest. He had watched that nest for_ weeks _, and the thought of the delicate new life inside it smashed, gone forever, almost broke him, until the owlet had stirred. The owlet chirped weakly, and Virgil’s hand paused as he released a breath he hadn’t known he was holding. Tentatively, he scooped the chick into its hands, cradling it protectively against his chest._

_“It’s okay, small friend.” Virgil spoke in soft, reassuring tones, so as not to frighten it. His voice was hoarse; he hadn’t spoken aloud in some time. Its eyes were not even open yet. “I don’t have a mommy or a daddy either. I can protect you. You’re safe now.” The last sentence was almost a giggle, as eleven-year-old Virgil realized giddily that he, parentless himself, a friendless, strange child with no clue if he was doing this right, was going to be a_ parent _._

_The giddiness was quickly replaced by fear. What if Virgil couldn’t care for it? What did it eat? What if it died here, in his hands? What if it hurt itself further?_ What if the other children found it _?_

_Virgil drew a shaky breath, and another, and skirted the edge of the courtyard and back into the house._

_“You’re safe now,” he repeated, as much a reassurance to himself as to the bird._

_At dinner, when Roger dumped a bag of birdseed on top of his oatmeal, Virgil suppressed a flinch and reached his hand into the pocket of his hoodie, where the tiny owlet slept, almost catatonic. He gathered the birdseed up in his napkin and snuck it into his pocket. Later, the bird would wake up, and Virgil would try to give it some of the seed. When the owlet wouldn’t take it, Virgil would dig up a worm instead, cut it up into little pieces and feed the little bird by hand._

_The owlet, his secret friend, was his anchor._

_He named it Patton._

**Author's Note:**

> This will probably be a multi-chapter fic at some point but I haven't written the rest yet, and this can easily stand as a one-shot. I hope you enjoyed!  
> (Also, did anyone catch the tiny allusion to Roman? He'll show up later, but he's the vigilante.)


End file.
